The Dhamma Brothers - documentary

Wow. This movie sounds interesting! I have recommended Vipassana meditation to friends who have inquired about meditating.  www.dhammabrothers.com

This film is about inmates who are lifers - no chance of parole. People outside the prison tried to shut down the experiment in meditation because they believed the project was about trying to convert Christians to Buddhism.

Enter "The Dhamma Brothers," a new documentary that hits select theaters this Friday, which takes a stab at that very question of whether people can ever really change their behavior. The film centers on a fascinating social experiment that took place at Donaldson in 2002 where inmates were given the chance to take a ten-day Vipassana meditation retreat, replete with total silence, within the confines of the prison. Just what happens to this group of prisoners when their minds start screaming louder than their mouths ever could?

What results is a film that will undoubtedly challenge many of your most cynical opinions of the criminal condition. We all know that old aphorism that says that a leopard can't change his spots, but what if that leopard met the Buddha? Yes, the leopard may very well eat the Buddha, thus leaving the saying intact, but none of us really know, do we?

For the sake of understanding the movie's title, the "Dhamma" are the teachings of the Buddha and the "Dhamma brothers" are a specific group of inmates who took the Director of Treatment up on his Vipassana experiment and who felt completely transformed for the experience after so many other rehabilitation attempts had failed .

Are any of these guys really changed by Vipassana, a word that literally means "to see things as they really are?" After watching this film, chock-full of fascinating personal interviews with the inmates, prison guards, warden, and a slew of other people instrumental in pulling together such a progressive program, you get to be the judge and jury as to its effectiveness.

I burst out laughing at this quote:

As for the meditation philosophies of the East trying to squeeze underneath the tight Bible belt of the Deep South, the filmmakers do a nice job of exploring reactions at the local and state level.  As one local woman says:

Well, I don't believe in Buddhism or stuff like that...I'm a Christian...or any kind of witchcraft at all...so I don't believe it would help.

There is nothing supernatural about meditating (for those concerned about witchcraft).